Central and Eastern Eurobarometer 8: Public Opinion and the European Union, October-November 1997 (ICPSR 2624)

The eighth round of Central and Eastern Eurobarometer
surveys was carried out in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and
Slovenia. Respondents were asked many questions that appeared in
earlier surveys in this series. These included items on whether
respondents felt that things in their country were going in the right
or wrong direction, how satisfied they were with the way democracy was
developing and how it was working in their country, and how much
respect there now was for human rights. Respondents were also asked to
identify the flags of different countries and organizations, to
provide their impressions of the aims and activities of the European
Union (EU), and to comment on which countries they believed their
future was most closely tied to, how they would vote if referenda on
the question of their country's membership in the EU and in NATO were
held tomorrow, and the main reasons for their votes. Additional
questions focused on which groups within their societies would likely
benefit or lose out as ties between their country and the EU
increased, whether their country or the EU itself benefited the most
from the current relationship between the two, the ways they might
hear about the activities of the EU, and if they wanted to learn more
about what the EU was doing on a variety of economic and social
issues. New questions explored whether respondents had ever heard of
the United Nations, the European Union, or the Council of Europe, and
whether they would be more or less likely to vote for EU membership if
their country had first joined NATO. Demographic information collected
on respondents covers sex, age, highest level of education completed,
occupation, voting status, mother tongue and knowledge of other
languages, which party they would vote for should there be a general
election held tomorrow, nationality/ethnic background, region of
residence, size of locality, and income.

The eighth round of Central and Eastern Eurobarometer
surveys was carried out in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and
Slovenia. Respondents were asked many questions that appeared in
earlier surveys in this series. These included items on whether
respondents felt that things in their country were going in the right
or wrong direction, how satisfied they were with the way democracy was
developing and how it was working in their country, and how much
respect there now was for human rights. Respondents were also asked to
identify the flags of different countries and organizations, to
provide their impressions of the aims and activities of the European
Union (EU), and to comment on which countries they believed their
future was most closely tied to, how they would vote if referenda on
the question of their country's membership in the EU and in NATO were
held tomorrow, and the main reasons for their votes. Additional
questions focused on which groups within their societies would likely
benefit or lose out as ties between their country and the EU
increased, whether their country or the EU itself benefited the most
from the current relationship between the two, the ways they might
hear about the activities of the EU, and if they wanted to learn more
about what the EU was doing on a variety of economic and social
issues. New questions explored whether respondents had ever heard of
the United Nations, the European Union, or the Council of Europe, and
whether they would be more or less likely to vote for EU membership if
their country had first joined NATO. Demographic information collected
on respondents covers sex, age, highest level of education completed,
occupation, voting status, mother tongue and knowledge of other
languages, which party they would vote for should there be a general
election held tomorrow, nationality/ethnic background, region of
residence, size of locality, and income.

The files included with this release of the collection
derive from the data producer, GfK Europe Ad Hoc Research, Brussels.
However, additional processing of the data was performed at the
Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung in Cologne, Germany.

Methodology

Sample:
Multistage national probability samples.

Mode of Data Collection:
face-to-face interview

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 1999-02-03

Version History:

2005-08-04 This data collection has been
reformatted and updated in conformance with current Eurobarometer
processing standards. Many variable names, variable labels, and value
labels have been revised to current naming conventions. Some combined
variables, like Vote Intention, Income, and Region have been broken
out into country-specific variables. Revised SAS and SPSS setup files
and an updated documentation file are now available as well.